


Without Saying

by especiallythezefronposter



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Cuddling, M/M, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-19
Updated: 2015-01-19
Packaged: 2018-03-08 07:02:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3199886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/especiallythezefronposter/pseuds/especiallythezefronposter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce doesn't like fireworks. Tony makes sure he isn't alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Without Saying

Bruce's heart is racing, but he doesn't Hulk out. Instead he stumbles out of bed, away from the noise, the lights, the window. He covers his mouth with his hands, afraid to make a sound, though he has learned long ago to endure violence quietly. There's the walk in closet, filled with clothes Tony made someone buy for him and he knows it's a good place to hide, but his fingers are numb and he can't get up and he can't get the door open, so he keeps close to the wall and pushes himself towards the nearest corner instead. He keeps pushing even when he gets there, but the unyielding wall against his back doesn't hurt.

He sits there for ages, or maybe for not a long time at all, but he isn't even starting to calm down yet when there's hands on him. He tries to duck them, but he's in the corner and there's nowhere he can go, so he fights, because where there are hands there are guns and where there are guns there are worse things. He balls his hands into fists, and they aren't green, but the Hulk is not the only one who is desperate to survive. He swings his arm and connects with something that doesn't crack but curses and then the hands are gone. 

What remains is a voice. He must have been talking for a while, but Bruce is only listening now. 'You're okay.' It's Tony, carefully crouching a few feet away from Bruce. 'It's just you and me here. It's just fireworks. You're safe. You're in the Tower. No one can get to you here. It's just fireworks. It's just you and me. You're safe.'

Bruce can't get enough oxygen in his lungs to speak, doesn't know what he would have said if he could, so he tries to go still instead, to stop fighting. He's shaking, but his arms and legs are still except for that. Even when a new battery of fireworks goes off, he only flinches and covers his mouth again.

Tony keeps up his mantra of _you're safe, it's just us, it's only fireworks, you're safe_ steadily. He sits down on the floor and leans over to Bruce, peeling his hands away from his mouth so that he can hold them. 'Can you get up?', he asks gently. 'We should head to the Thunderroom.' 

Bruce nods and when Tony doesn't let go of his hand even after he has helped him up, he's secretly glad. The Thunderroom is just at the end of the hallway, windowless and absolutely soundproof, but otherwise almost identical to his bedroom. The biggest difference is the door that leads directly to the lab, so that he isn't locked up in one room during a thunderstorm. 

'Sorry,' Tony says. 'I should've thought of it before.'

Bruce shakes his head. They'd spent the last couple of days in the lab, too preoccupied with Tesseract technology to even check the date. 'I haven't been in America during the Fourth of July since the accident,' is all he says. It makes him feel so damned far from this place with its glass and its steel and its concrete. So far from rest and safety and _Tony_ , though they're still holding hands.

Then Tony pulls the door of the Thunderroom shut and everything goes quiet, even the rush of images in Bruce's head - hospitals in the darkest corners of the earth (and worse, places where there are no hospitals), this other world with its blinking lights and all these things that Bruce can't understand, doesn't want to understand. 

There's just Tony now and the overwhelming desire to be with him, to keep him here so that the bad thoughts stay away. That's why, after he has let go of Tony's hand and crawled into bed, right when Tony reaches out to touch his hair, before he turns away and walks out of the door, goes back to the lab to work the night away, Bruce says: 'Stay.'

Tony stiffens and Bruce can hear him inhale slowly, but he can't see his face. 'Okay,' Tony says and he takes another two steps towards the door to turn off the lights. Then Bruce hears him kick of his shoes and walk back to the bed. The covers lift and the mattress dips and Bruce moves to make room for Tony. The bed is big enough for them to keep their distance, to make this a friends-thing, a _we don't have to talk about this tomorrow_ -thing.

Then Tony's voice makes the dark tremble softly - like a cat's purr or steady breathing, something solid and alive and reassuring, something Bruce so desperately _needs_. 'Is it okay if I touch you? Just -'

'Yeah,' Bruce says and they reach out at the same moment, not desperately, but relieved. Tony's all around him now and if he wanted to, if he moved his head just the slightest bit, he could kiss his collarbone.

'Is this okay?', Tony asks and Bruce does kiss his collarbone then, just to make sure he gets it.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from All Through The Night by Cyndi Lauper (though I've been listening to Sleeping At Last's cover while writing this)


End file.
